


many years from forgetting

by everybodyknowseverybodydies



Series: Tumblr drabbles [6]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, River's being cryptic but is that really a new thing, alien beach, originally I was going to call this 'alien beach nonsense' but that sounds misleading, some vague sads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 23:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9351722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodyknowseverybodydies/pseuds/everybodyknowseverybodydies
Summary: "Is that a promise, Dr. Song?""Shut up, I'm burying you."





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: "River/Doctor and a beach"

“This is boring,” the Doctor complained, squinting up at the sun with a pout. Singular sun, red in the purple-splotched sky. The water was nice, but River had picked a private beach and there was nobody here, which could have been interesting, except that it seemed like the _entire planet was empty_ and she _didn’t want to go exploring_.

“Should’ve thought of that before you let me pick the destination, sweetie.” A shadow fell over him, and his view of the sun was obscured suddenly by his wife leaning over him, eyebrows raised over a pair of sunglasses sliding down her nose and curls loose and wild around her head. She poked his chin with a smirk and sat down beside him, pushing the rich blue sand up and over his chest. “Next time you see me you’re going to wish this is all we were doing.”

He perked up. “Is that a promise, Dr. Song?”

“Shut up, I’m burying you.”

“That wasn’t a no,” he said hopefully, but then she tossed sand at his face and he had to spend a minute or two hacking dramatically until she rolled her eyes and shoved him over onto his stomach. “No spoilers, fine, right, good. But if I guess what it is that doesn’t mean you’re telling me things, it just means I’m very good at guessing. Does it involve the -?”

“Guess all you like, love, I’m not answering.” She dumped another fistful over him and shifted, feet half-sunk in the sand. “I’m just saying maybe one of us deserves a rest every now and then.”

“Ooo, Dr. _Song_.” She sprinkled some sand in his hair. It fell down his nose and he had to take another few moments to wheeze and cough. “Riverrrr -” he whined. “What is it? Are you having a, a _time_?”

“Sweetie, with you, I am always having a ‘time.’” He turned his head to look at her. The soft red light of the sun bronzed her shoulders, gilded her hair. She caught him staring and her expression melted into an amused little smirk. “Look, it’s very hard to have a relaxing, restful day when you’re making that face.”

“Oh, the hot face?”

“No, the besotted idiot one.” He frowned, but it only made her laugh. “That one too. Listen, sometimes you just need to take a day off, yeah? Someone’s got to make you do it.”

“ _You_ don’t ever take days off.”

“Keeping you alive is a full-time job,” she agreed.

The blue sand on his back was piling up. “What are you doing?”

“Can’t dig something up if it isn’t buried, can you?”

“Did you bring me here to practice _archaeology_ on me?” he demanded, scandalized, as he tried to sit up, but there was too much sand already for him to do more than flail. “ _Rivah_ , that’s very rude!”

“Hush, you like it, really.” She stretched, head tipped back and sunglasses sliding back into place, the line of her jaw and her throat and her collarbone silhouetted with the sun behind her. The scrapes on her knuckles were fresher than he’d assumed at first, he noted.

_You’re beautiful_ , he thought. “What happened?” he asked instead, voice low. “What happens?”

She rolled her shoulders lazily and leaned back on her hands, the sunglasses slipping down her nose again. For a moment she didn’t say anything, just looked at him with that brilliant green-gold stare, and he felt very suddenly like a Ming vase.

“Doctor,” she said at last. “You of all people ought to know better than to ask questions you already know the answer to.”

“Do I?”

“Where are Amy and Rory?” she asked abruptly, leaning over him to even out the distribution of the sand.

He squinted at her in silence for a moment. “I never bring them on our trips. These are just for us, I thought.”

“Of course.” River kept her attention focused on her hands, fingers threading through the blue sand quicker.

“Did you… want to see them?”

“No.” She was digging him out again now, and she flashed him a bright smile. “It doesn’t matter. Are you going to help, or did you really want me to go fetch my new trowel?”


End file.
